An eccentric millionaire throws a party for his wife in a haunted house offering each guest $10,000 if they can make it through the night. Only there seem to be schemes at work beyond what the ghosts have planned.

You can find out more about this movie on its IMDB page.

You can download an AVI of this movie here.

And this movie was featured on an episode of Frightmares the Series hosted on the Internet Archive here.


This movie is part of the collection: Sci-Fi / Horror

Director: William Castle
Producer: William Castle
Production Company: William Castle Productions
Audio/Visual: sound, black & white
Language: English
Keywords: haunted house; Vincent Price; horror; murder; suspense; ghosts

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Moongleam - - June 12, 2012
Subject: Ignorant
To to the ignorant who say that this is not public domain: all U.S. films released before 1964 had to have their copyrights renewed after 28 years.

Show us the copyright renewal for this film. It is mindless to come here and claim that this is under copyright without showing the copyright renewal.

For example, here is the renewal for another William Castle film:


13 ghosts. By William Castle Productions.
Type of Work: Motion Picture
Registration Number / Date: RE0000377853 / 1988-03-01
Renewal registration for: LP0000017292 / 1960-07-01
Title: 13 ghosts. By William Castle Productions.
Copyright Claimant: Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (PWH)

Variant title: 13 ghosts.
Names: William Castle Productions.
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.


There is no copyright renewal for this film. There seems to be a renewal for music that is found in the film, but that does not keep the movie from being public domain. The company that made the movie obtained a license to use that music in the film. (The copyright on the movie would have been renewed by Allied Artists Pictures, not by Richard Kayne & Richard Loring.)

Here is the original registration for the movie (with OCR typos):

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Allied ArtlatB
Pictures Corp. 75 mln., sd., b&w,
35 mm. (c) Allied Artlats Pictures
Corp.; 29Dec58 (in notice: 1959);
LP12531.


Note that the original registration number is LP12531, not EU0000546955.

Also, Alpha Video sells this.

And do not come to the Archive to complain about youtube. The Archive has no control over the idiots at youtube.

Reviewer: retro guy - - June 11, 2012
Subject: NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN DO NOT UPLOAD TO YOUTUBE
moongleam- all caps dont make you right! And pointing out a strangers purported "ignorance" does nothing to admonish yourself of the same identifier. Whilst the film itself is indeed,"supposedly" public domain, the music in the film was in fact renewed. Here's the info requested:

Type of Work: Music
Registration Number / Date: RE0000309723 / 1986-11-17
Renewal registration for: EU0000546955 / 1958-10-20
Title: House on Haunted Hill. From House on Haunted Hill. w Richard Kayne, m Richard Loring.
Copyright Claimant: Richard Kayne & Richard Loring (A)
Variant title: House on Haunted Hill
Names: Kayne, Richard
Loring, Richard

Archive.org has been notified of this.

Reviewer: drworm01 - - June 11, 2012
Subject: Public Domain
This film is public domain. Warner released a DVD of it in 1999 and may be using that as the basis for their copyright claims.
Regardless, this film and this print is public domain, free to download, reuse, and redistribute in any way you please.

Reviewer: archiveto - - June 2, 2012
Subject: Youtube Pulled It
Why if this is public domain content did youtube pull it, placing a copyright strike on my account?
It said something about this being the master copy
Youtube is riddled with contradiction. They ask that you not to upload copyrighted content, yet most of their content is just that. Music, TV shows, movies,uploaded by consumers. If you do it anyway, they'll tell you it's up to the copyright holder to decide if their material should be pulled. So basically they're saying, don't, but you (like millions of others) just might get away with it.
It's either copyrighted or it's not & if this movie is in the public domain it shouldn't get yanked. But in typical youtube style others are still online.

Reviewer: Peter Cushing Hammer Horror - - September 14, 2011
Subject: on DVD
I found this movie in a set ( 3 movies on one dvd)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Horrors-Silver-Screen-Haunted/dp/B00066883Y/ref=pd_sim_d_h_2

Reviewer: Thanatos333 - - May 29, 2010
Subject: One Creepy Hill
This movie was a real treat and I enjoyed how simple , yet terrifying it was. With great acting and the psychology beyond all the creepiness in the film it deserves 5 stars.

Reviewer: whiskeycat - - January 24, 2010
Subject: saw it when I was a kid
one of my all time favorites, I just love those creepy sound effects, chains rattling and that spooky laughing.

And of course there's Carol Ohmart (vincent price's wife) she's a real babe.

Reviewer: agapocine - - October 21, 2009
Subject: Haunted remakes
The value of the movie is unquestionable (though someone found common places
with Ed Wood!?).I had not seen the original till now but just the remake with Geoffrey
Rush in the place of the millionaire.Now i think that we should give a "ghost party"
to all remake directors with the hope that none of them would come out alive!
Really watching movies like this makes me shout PLEASE NO MORE REMAKES!

Reviewer: keygrip - - October 15, 2009
Subject: What a scream
A thoroughly enjoyable way over the top camp horror classic.
I remember when it was first shown in the theatres,they had a skeleton dancing on wires over the audience just as the on screen skeleton was putting paid to Vincent's wife.
You can't beat that!

Reviewer: cosmicolada - - August 29, 2009
Subject: Castle of Crap
This exchange from Tim Burton's 1994 film ED WOOD comes to mind:

--
Ed Wood: If you take that crap and put a star in it, then you've got something!

George Weiss: Yeah. Crap with a star.
--

One star for Vinnie. None for Castle.

Reviewer: thestril - - July 20, 2009
Subject: Creepy, lovely
This movie has so many scenes that are just plain creepy, one of my absolute favorites.

Reviewer: zeneida - - June 3, 2009
Subject: screen format
Please answer guys, is this in widescreen or fullscreen format? I have the fullscreen version & it's quite a disappointment, I don't want to redownload something that I already have.

Reviewer: zythmer - - August 17, 2008
Subject: Best version of this movie on archive.org
The MPEG-2 encoding here is the best available version on archive.org. The plot summary is incorrect, however, as they were promised $10,000 each.

I always enjoy Vincent Price movies. He has a screen presence that's hard to ignore. It's worth a download just to see Vincent Price in action even if you aren't a suspense/horror movie fan.

Overall, this is a fun movie but you have to stretch your imagination (and ignore circumstances) at times. This is one of the best public domain movies on archive.org.